One who surrenders himself to a saint, putting aside his own knowledge and wisdom, is a true sadhaka. One who sees the whole universe, including his disciple, as a manifestation of Rama, is a real guru. He never behaves under the constraint of obligation, nor does he harbour the slightest fear. Saints know on what spiritual level the disciple is. The mundane-minded are subservient to sensuous considerations, while saints rule over them. We may say that we have met a saint if we get an experience of the peace and contentment which a saint possesses, or if a liking for it arises in us.
A patient may know nothing of the constituents of a medicine and still get cured if he takes it with faith; a person who knows nothing of cooking can have a discriminating palate, and can eat food to his fill; so, too, a person may not be able to express it in words and yet have had spiritual experience.
As we do not feel sorry for common salt having a salty taste, and accept it as its nature, so the saints do not worry over battles, riots, feuds, disasters, harassment of the good, and so on, realizing them to be the very nature of the world. Not that they like them; indeed, they even strive to eradicate those evils.
Frogs living in a well or a small pond have no idea of the vastness of the ocean; so, too, we have no idea of the greatness of saints. Saints were initially just like what we are today, but they elevated themselves to the present height by dint of constant awareness and contemplation of God.
We need not undertake a search for saints. If we are really intense in our desire, they will themselves come searching for us; they look only to our earnestness.
A saint is like a detective; he lives among us, like us, but unrecognized by us. He can see what goes on inside his body, but does not worry about a disease it may have. He has the power to change destiny, but never evades or alters it; it has to be faced. Whatever sadhana the saint prescribes for a sadhaka is according to the latter's capacity; so it behoves us to obey his advice implicitly.